Sophia

In the margin

The attic flats of the Jordaan are charming in November and punishing in a hot spell, and Sophia will say so before an hour is fixed rather than afterwards. Her advice is dull and it works: window open from mid afternoon, curtain across, a fan if the building runs to one, and the shower put through cold before she arrives. Greek and English, warm in each. Twenty-five, and she would sooner move an evening later into the night than watch a room beat the session. What the hour includes she decides, and she says it early.

Sophia decides which bookings she takes and may decline any of them; she sets the limits for what a session includes, says what they are, and may end a visit at any point, as the terms set out.